Longest drop 55m
Public access
6hrs
A committing descent with a series of waterfalls in relatively low volume water.
Beta sheet for Sleeping Beauty Canyon
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Comment courtesy of Pete Smith:
Sleeping Beauty was smashed during the big storm of 2017.
I am aware a couple of groups have attempted it but bailed out. From what I understand it has piles of rock in places from slips, some unstable. it has also been scoured out back to bedrock in places leaving little to anchor from.
However James Mclean, Micheal Donovan etc did complete a mission. James reports ” I’d say for the warning mention that the canyon is actively changing, natural anchors are being taken out by land movement and the rock is of poor quality for bolting. There are no natural anchors in place.”
It would be like an ‘adventure’ descent every time, until it settles. Full anchor kit needed!
The water is strong enough to knock you of you’re feet after a good downpour. We found this out on our second descent. I am not certain that the top 55m abseil could be down climbed, unless you go far to the True right and give it a go in very steep ground.
If you look at the Grading page http://www.kiwicanyons.org/?page_id=243 you’ll see that as soon as the max pitch is over 30m, it gets an automatic v4 grade. Just reflects the added difficulty of managing a drop that requires 2 (normal length) ropes to descend…
The grading schedule can be debated forever, but I’ve chosen to follow the default international version for consistency. 🙂
I think V3A2III* is probably more like it. Even though there is a single 55m abseil, probably half of it is down climbable (The next biggest is 30 M). Thoughts??
Sweet canyon. Really pretty with very little technical Difficulty. It would be a little more fun and challenging after a bit of rain.